The project focused on sharing approaches and lessons learnt across and between public administrations, business development support and financial organisations, social enterprises, non-profit organisations, educational institutions and other public and private organisations supporting migrant entrepreneurship at all levels: cities, regions and countries. These practices, together with the Good Practices in Promoting and Supporting Migrant Entrepreneurship benchmarking tool (2016), was the starting point for the modelling of entrepreneurship support schemes for migrants.
The aim was to develop, share and promote support schemes not only for individual migrant entrepreneurs but also for social and inclusive enterprises benefitting migrants. Ultimately the knowledge gained was of use for those developing and promoting support schemes for migrant entrepreneurs, leading to a more inclusive society. Based on the concept of a supportive ecosystem described below, we brought together relevant players at European, national and regional levels to form transnational networks, which will work together on the basis of existing evidence of what is effective to achieve better impact. These are conceived as being Communities of Practice, within which practitioners can share their knowledge and experience and learn from each other.
The main learning tool used for this was structured peer review among participating individuals and organisations, followed by the dissemination of the resulting learning to a wider circle of stakeholders and organisations.
The network as a whole operated through three Communities of Practice, each addressing a key component of a comprehensive ecosystem to support migrant entrepreneurship. The network’s services were delivered through a dedicated website, publications, an infoline and in the case of peer reviews though personal dialogue, coaching and mentoring.
